"Pegasus (constellation) Pegasus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the 88 constellations recognised today. With an apparent magnitude varying between 2.37 and 2.45, the brightest star in Pegasus is the orange supergiant Epsilon Pegasi, also known as Enif, which marks the horse's muzzle. Alpha (Markab), Beta (Scheat), and Gamma (Algenib), together with Alpha Andromedae (Alpheratz, once also designated Delta Pegasi) form the large asterism known as the ""Square of Pegasus"". Twelve star systems"
"struck from Poseidon's trident, during the contest between him and Athena when deciding which would be the superior. Because this section of stars rises before Pegasus, it is often called Equus Primus, or the First Horse. Equuleus is also linked to the story of Philyra and Saturn. Created by Hipparchus and included by Ptolemy, it abuts Pegasus; unlike the larger horse it is depicted as a horse's head alone. In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Equuleus are located within the Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武, ""Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ""). Equuleus Equuleus is a constellation. Its name is"
"Aquila (constellation) Aquila is a constellation on the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for 'eagle' and it represents the bird that carried Zeus/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology. Its brightest star, Altair, is one vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism. The constellation is best seen in the northern summer, as it is located along the Milky Way. Because of this location, many clusters and nebulae are found within its borders, but they are dim and galaxies are few. Aquila was one of the 48 constellations described by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy. It had been earlier mentioned by Eudoxus in the"
"Dark Horse (astronomy) The Dark Horse Nebula or ""Great Dark Horse"" (sometimes called The Prancing Horse) is a large dark nebula, which as seen from Earth, obscures part of the upper central bulge of the Milky Way. The Dark Horse lies in the equatorial constellation Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer), near its borders with the more famous constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius. It is a significant, visible feature of the Milky Way's Great Rift. It can only be seen from very dark places (places without light pollution) and places that do not have a lot of moisture in the atmosphere. This region"
"fourth century BC and Aratus in the third century BC. It is now one of the 88 constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation was also known as ""Vultur volans"" (the flying vulture) to the Romans, not to be confused with ""Vultur cadens"" which was their name for Lyra. It is often held to represent the eagle which held Zeus's/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology. Aquila is also associated with the eagle that kidnapped Ganymede, a son of one of the kings of Troy (associated with Aquarius), to Mount Olympus to serve as cup-bearer to the gods. Ptolemy catalogued"
"Corvus (constellation) Corvus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name means ""raven"" in Latin. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it depicts a raven, a bird associated with stories about the god Apollo, perched on the back of Hydra the water snake. The four brightest stars, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form a distinctive quadrilateral in the night sky. With an apparent magnitude of 2.59, Gamma Corvi—also known as Gienah—is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an aging blue giant around four times as massive as the Sun."
"not known to the ancient Greeks, there is an old story that it was the Lost Pleiad Electra, which had wandered here from her companions and became Alopex, the Fox. A Latin title was Eques Stellula, the Little Starry Horseman; Eques, the Cavalier, is from the 17th-century German astronomer Bayer. Mizar and Alcor together are sometimes called the ""Horse and Rider"" (and popularly, in England, Jack on the Middle Horse), with Mizar being the horse. The Persian astronomer Al Biruni (973–1048 A.D.) mentioned its importance in the family life of the Arabs on the 18th day of the Syrian month"
"Equuleus Equuleus is a constellation. Its name is Latin for 'little horse', a foal. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is the second smallest of the modern constellations (after Crux), spanning only 72 square degrees. It is also very faint, having no stars brighter than the fourth magnitude. The brightest star in Equuleus is Alpha Equulei, traditionally called Kitalpha, a yellow star magnitude 3.9, 186 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name means ""the section of the horse"". There are few variable stars in"
"goose to be two separate constellations, but later the stars were divided into a separate Anser and Vulpecula. Today, they have been merged again under the name of the fox, but the goose is remembered by the name of the star α Vulpeculae: Anser. Vulpecula Vulpecula is a faint constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for ""little fox"", although it is commonly known simply as the fox. It was identified in the seventeenth century, and is located in the middle of the Summer Triangle (an asterism consisting of the bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair). There are"
"picked the star in Corvus, and which is the mascot of Superman's high school, the Smallville Crows. Corvus (constellation) Corvus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name means ""raven"" in Latin. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it depicts a raven, a bird associated with stories about the god Apollo, perched on the back of Hydra the water snake. The four brightest stars, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form a distinctive quadrilateral in the night sky. With an apparent magnitude of 2.59, Gamma Corvi—also known as Gienah—is the brightest star"
"Einstein's prediction of the bending of light around the Sun from his general theory of relativity which he published in 1915. Taurus (constellation) Taurus (Latin for ""the Bull"") is one of the constellations of the zodiac, which means it is crossed by the plane of the ecliptic. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere's winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the"
"a winged beast that he associated with ecstatic destruction. The beast took the form of a winged unicorn in his 1907 play ""The Unicorn from the Stars"" and later that of the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem in his poem ""The Second Coming"". Winged unicorn A winged unicorn (or flying unicorn) is a fictional horse with wings like Pegasus and the horn of a unicorn. This creature has no specific name, but in some literature and media, it has been referred to as an alicorn, a Latin word for the horn of a unicorn, especially in alchemical texts, or as"
"Taurus (constellation) Taurus (Latin for ""the Bull"") is one of the constellations of the zodiac, which means it is crossed by the plane of the ecliptic. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere's winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. A number of features exist that are of interest to"
"along the Mediterranean coast. Other Europeans who sought to name this new constellation included Augustin Royer, who created Sceptrum et Manus Iustitiae (the Hand of Justice and Sceptre) to honor Louis XIV in 1670, and Johann Elert Bode, who created Frederici Honores (Frederick's Glory) to honor Frederick the Great in 1787. Both Sceptrum and Frederici Honores are now obsolete, while Lacerta still survives. Although not included in ancient star charts of Europe and the Near East, the stars of Lacerta, along with some in the eastern portion of Cygnus, were coincidentally combined by early Chinese astronomers into their ""Flying serpent""."
"Felis (constellation) Felis (Latin for ""cat"") was a constellation created by French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1799. He chose the name partly because, as a cat lover, he felt sorry that there was not yet a cat among the constellations (although there are two lions and a lynx). It was between the constellations of Antlia and Hydra. This constellation was first depicted in the ""Uranographia sive Astrorum Descriptio"" (1801) of Johann Elert Bode. It is now obsolete. Its brightest star, HD 85951, was named ""Felis"" by the International Astronomical Union on 1 June 2018 and it is now so included"
"while the declination coordinates are between 2.33° and 36.61°. Its position in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers north of 53°S. Pegasus is dominated by a roughly square asterism, although one of the stars, Delta Pegasi or Sirrah, is now officially considered to be Alpha Andromedae, part of Andromeda, and is more usually called ""Alpheratz"". Traditionally, the body of the horse consists of a quadrilateral formed by the stars α Peg, β Peg, γ Peg, and α And. The front legs of the winged horse are formed by two crooked lines of stars,"
"a small S-shaped nebula emerging from the west side of the northern part of the bowl of the Pipe (B77). Barnard 68 is another named dark patch of molecular gas and dust appearing in the Dark Horse Nebula. Dark Horse (astronomy) The Dark Horse Nebula or ""Great Dark Horse"" (sometimes called The Prancing Horse) is a large dark nebula, which as seen from Earth, obscures part of the upper central bulge of the Milky Way. The Dark Horse lies in the equatorial constellation Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer), near its borders with the more famous constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius. It is"
"Alpha Phoenicis Alpha Phoenicis (α Phoenicis, abbreviated Alpha Phe or α Phe), also named Ankaa, is the brightest star in the constellation of Phoenix. ""Alpha Phoenicis"" is the star's Bayer designation. It also bore the traditional name Ankaa sometime after 1800, from the Arabic العنقاء ""al-ʿanqā’"" ""the phoenix"" for the name of the constellation. Medieval Arab astronomers formed the constellation of the dhow (where Phoenix is), so another popular name for the star is ""Nair al Zaurak"" from نائر الزوق ""na’ir az-zawraq"" ""the bright (star) of the skiff"". The Latin translation is ""Cymbae,"" from ""lūcida cumbae"". In 2016, the International"
"telescope). It forms a part of two well-known triplet asterisms: With β and γ Aquilae it forms the straight line of stars sometimes referred to as the ""Family of Aquila"" or the ""Shaft of Aquila""; more prominently, it is the southernmost vertex of the Summer Triangle, the other two vertices being the bright stars Deneb and Vega (see ""High Sierra"", below). The name Altair is from the Arabic (النسر الطائر ""an-nasr aṭ-ṭā’ir""), which translates literally as ""the flying eagle"", from its belonging to the constellation. The star is named and plays a part in a variety of ancient myths worldwide,"
"Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman in the late 16th century. It was first depicted on Petrus Plancius’ globe in 1598. Plancius called the constellation ""Vliegendenvis"" (flying fish). In 1603, Johann Bayer included the constellation in his star atlas ""Uranometria"" under the name Piscis Volans, the flying fish. John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word in 1844, noting that Lacaille himself had abbreviated his constellations thus on occasion. This was universally adopted. Volans represents a type of tropical fish that can jump out of the water and glide through the air on wings. In early celestial maps,"
"its constellation, Canis Major (Greater Dog). The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the ""dog days"" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians in the Southern Hemisphere the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean. The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius is recorded in the earliest astronomical records. Its displacement from the ecliptic causes this heliacal rising to be remarkably regular compared to other stars, with a period of almost exactly 365.25 days holding it constant relative to the"
"the original Greek and Latin names for stars, It contain a star catalogue of 1022 stars, described by their positions in the constellations, In the 9th century it was adopted by the Arabs and translated from the original Greek and Latin into Arabic. For example, the Arabs translated ""Opisthen"" (Οπισθεν ""after"" or ""following"") or ""Opiso"" (Οπισω ""to follow after"" ), one of the original Greek names for the brightest star in Taurus, as ""Aldebaran"" (الدبران), which means ""the Follower"" in Arabic, because the star always follows behind the Pleiades as both move across the sky. In all, there are three"
"in the Universe known. NASA's Pioneer 11 space probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn in the 1970s, is expected to pass near the star Lambda (λ) Aquilae in about 4 million years. In illustrations of Aquila that represent it as an eagle, a nearly straight line of three stars symbolizes part of the wings. The center and brightest of these three stars is Altair. The tips of the wings extend further to the southeast and northwest. The head of the eagle stretches off to the southwest. According to Gavin White, the Babylonian Eagle carried the constellation called the Dead"
"the Greeks, he was Helios, carried by a chariot drawn by fiery horses. From the reign of Elagabalus in the late Roman Empire the Sun's birthday was a holiday celebrated as Sol Invictus (literally ""Unconquered Sun"") soon after the winter solstice, which may have been an antecedent to Christmas. Regarding the fixed stars, the Sun appears from Earth to revolve once a year along the ecliptic through the zodiac, and so Greek astronomers categorized it as one of the seven planets (Greek ""planetes"", ""wanderer""); the naming of the days of the weeks after the seven planets dates to the Roman"
"Alpha Pegasi Alpha Pegasi (α Pegasi, abbreviated Alpha Peg, α Peg), also named Markab, is the third-brightest star in the constellation of Pegasus and one of the four stars in the asterism known as the Great Square of Pegasus. ""α Pegasi"" (Latinised to ""Alpha Pegasi"") is the star's Bayer designation. It bore the traditional name ""Markab"" (or ""Marchab""), which derived from an Arabic word ""مركب"" ""markab"" ""the saddle of the horse"", or is mistranscription of ""Mankib"", which itself comes from an Arabic phrase ""منكب الفرس"" ""Mankib al-Faras"" ""(the Star of) the Shoulder (of the Constellation) of the Horse"" for Beta"
"itself, as Robert Graves thought. When the sun is in the sign of Scorpio, the constellation Hercules rises. The Greeks referred to the constellation of Hercules as the Stag (""hind"" is another word for doe), the identification of the constellation with Hercules was made by the Romans. Ceryneian Hind In Greek mythology, the Ceryneian Hind ( ""Elaphos Kerynitis""), also called Cerynitis or the Golden Hind, was an enormous hind, that lived in Keryneia, Greece. It was sacred to Artemis, the chaste goddess of the hunt, animals, and unmarried women. It had golden antlers like a stag and hooves of bronze"
"Vela (constellation) Vela is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the sails of a ship, and it was originally part of a larger constellation, the ship ""Argo Navis"", which was later divided into three parts, the others being Carina and Puppis. With an apparent magnitude of 1.8, its brightest star is the hot blue multiple star Gamma Velorum, one component of which is the brightest Wolf-Rayet star in the sky. Delta and Kappa Velorum, together with Epsilon and Iota Carinae, form the asterism known as the False Cross. 1.95-magnitude Delta is actually a triple or"
"Guesses as to the identity of this star have included the polestar, the planet Venus, Sirius and the star Rigel which forms the toe of the constellation Orion, though if Aurvandil is to be identified with the constellation Orion one would expect to find Aurvandil himself being translated into the sky, not just his toe. In the Old English poem ""Crist"" I are the lines (104–111): The name is here taken to refer to John the Baptist, addressed as the morning star heralding the coming of Christ, the ""sun of righteousness"". Compare the ""Blickling Homilies"" (p. 163, I. 3) which"
"Cygnus (constellation) Cygnus is a northern constellation lying on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from the Latinized Greek word for swan. The swan is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn, and it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross (in contrast to the Southern Cross). Cygnus was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Cygnus contains Deneb, one of the brightest stars in the night sky and one corner of the Summer Triangle, as well"
"are defined by a 17-sided polygon. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between and . The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted the three-letter abbreviation ""Lyr"" for the constellation in 1922. The brightest and by far the most well-known star in the constellation is Vega, a main-sequence star of spectral type A0Va. Only 7.7 parsecs distant, is a Delta Scuti variable, varying between magnitudes −0.02 and 0.07 over 0.2 days. On average, it is the second-brightest star of the northern hemisphere (after Arcturus) and the fifth-brightest"
"northern direction. Since the medieval period, it has become convenient to use Alpha Ursae Minoris (or ""Polaris"") as the north star, even though it was still several degrees away from the celestial pole. Its New Latin name of ""stella polaris"" was coined only in the early modern period. The ancient name of the constellation is ""Cynosura"" (Greek Κυνοσούρα ""dog's tail""). The origin of this name is unclear (Ursa Minor being a ""dog's tail"" would imply that another constellation nearby is ""the dog"", but no such constellation is known). Instead, the mythographic tradition of ""Catasterismi"" makes ""Cynosura"" the name of an"
"Centaurus Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur; a creature that is half human, half horse (another constellation named after a centaur is one from the zodiac: Sagittarius). Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered. The constellation also contains Omega Centauri,"
"Europe. All but one honored instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. He gave these constellations Bayer designations, including ten stars in Pictor now named Alpha to Nu Pictoris. He labelled the constellation Equuleus Pictorius on his 1763 chart, the word ""Equuleus"" meaning small horse, or easel—perhaps from an old custom among artists of carrying a canvas on a donkey. The German astronomer Johann Bode called it Pluteum Pictoris. The name was shortened to its current form in 1845 by the English astronomer Francis Baily on the suggestion of his countryman Sir John Herschel. Pictor is a small constellation bordered"